A group of motherboard enthusiasts working for GIGABYTE, sharing their insider knowledge and general ramblings of the motherboard business, the tech industry, latest technologies and trends, and other random odds and ends.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

TeamAU are no strangers to extreme overclocking and this blog. This past weekend proved to be a fruitful one with a plethora of amazing overclocking results being put up on HWBOT. We reported on the 3DMARK06 global world record a few days ago and now have a whole host of others to tell you about. Team Australia (Team.AU) is made up of a group of members from the Australian & New Zealand overclocking community (majority of members have their original roots are from i4memory.com), who have come together to push the barriers of today’s enthusiast computing technology and to redefine the local and international overclocking scenes. Team Australia as a group is independent from any hwbot teams and are not exclusive to any one manufacturer.
One common theme here is TeamAU+Gigabyte Z77X-UP7+killer 3770K CPU and liquid nitrogen. Z77 platform and Ivy Bridge 3770K are nearing the end of the road and now the results start getting ever so harder to achieve which makes these records even sweeter. This is the time extreme overclockers start pulling out their gems (best hardware they have) and go for broke.
The get together was in Perth, Western Australia, and lot of the members made the long trip to freeze some hardware which included Deanzo, Dinos22, Kayl, JJJC (special guest from OCAU), SniperOZ, Uncle Fester and Youngpro.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Australia’s best extreme overclockers are having a weekend get together in
Perth this weekend and just posted a monster world record. They just claimed the
new global 3DMARK06 world record using GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7, 3770K and a pair of
5970 ATi graphics cards.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Oh yes folks it’s the time of the week you’ve all been waiting for! Friday afternoon! Not because the weekend is nigh, no, no - but because of course you’re all waiting with baited breathe for the next winner in our Year of the Snake Prize Draw to be announced. This weeks lucky winner is 1BadMoJoe from the US. Congrats 1Bad…you are now the proud owner of a GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Just a few hours ago we officially launched our new GIGABYTE H77TN and GIGABYTE B75TN motherboards - catch the press release here. Obviously the cool thing about these boards, is that they are thin and conform to the latest Thin Mini-ITX guidelines that have been specifically developed for the construction of All-in-One PCs.

The All-in-One PC segment is one that has shown a great deal of potential in recent years, and promises steady growth moving forward. But until now, there was no standard which manufacturers could use to help make their development easier. The finer details of any All-in-One PC design in regard to the placement of the CPU in relation to cooling and ventilation modules, drive bays and of course the screen itself, is paramount. Thin Mini-ITX makes a rational case for implementing standards and guidelines that can be followed by both chassis and motherboard vendors. This is creating an All-in-One eco-system where even DIY builders can put together their own All-in-One PCs.

Supporting both Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge Intel processors, the GIGABYTE H77TN and GIGABYTE B75TN are 43% thinner than standard Mini-ITX boards, implementing a maximum IO shield height of only 2.5cm. You won’t find any full size DDR3 slots either; to keep things as thin as possible, two SODIMM slots are placed horizontally on the board. In terms of storage there are the usual SATA slots, but also an mSATA slot for installing a compact and discrete mSATA SSD. We’ve also included a Mini PCIe slot which provides support for a range of WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity modules.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Firstly, let’s get one thing clear: Jeffrey Stephenson is not a case modder. He does not modify cases. Jeffrey designs and hand-builds small form factor PCs inspired by art-deco and other classic genres, using materials such as teak, mahogany and basswood. The results can only be described as breath-taking.

The latest build is known as Project Ayr. Based on the GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard, Project Ary is described in Jeffrey’s own words as “…a solid state, fanless, no-moving-parts, dead silent home theater PC in aluminum and mahogany. Features include Intel HD4000 graphics and an Intel Cherryville SSD.”

CPU air cooler has not changed a great deal over the years and it hardly progressed from the trusty old chunk of metal with fins and a fan on top disbursing the heat. We’ve recently seen manufacturers move to an all in one watercool design which uses a waterblock, pump and radiator to cool the heat source (i.e. CPU). It also requires a fan to cool metal fins in the radiator and there is some need for maintenance to remove dust from the fins which makes the design less effective as dust settles in the fins. Dust is a bit of a gripe of mine with most cooler designs these days and it would be nice to see an alternative that does away with it.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have been working on a different type of design which is really interesting. It’s based on an impeller design and does away with fans as it spins the metal finned heatsinks itself and generates some sort of an air vortex which is forced air into the middle of the cooler and then through those metal fins thanks to some clever design. These guys have used computational fluid dynamics to optimise the design. It elevates the finned heatsink as it spins at 2000rpm according to the researchers which basically will do away with any noise.

There are a lot of questions to be answered here which I’m sure a lot of us “cooling enthusiasts” are thinking of. Some that come to mind personally are what sort of heat is it able to cool effectively. Modern extreme OC CPUs have thermal ratings of up to 150W but they are usually heavily overclocked hence pushing the heat to twice the rated or even more. How much additional heat will it be able to cool before it reaches its max, 200W, 300W or more? I’m also thinking would it help using copper instead of what appears to be aluminium or some alloy they are using to improve efficiency. I wonder what they mean by the statement “it’s 30-times more efficient than conventional air-cooled heat exchangers”. Does that mean it’s just more efficient at getting rid of dead/static air or it has ability to draw a lot more heat out. The way he started talking about the cooler makes me think they are optimising it for up to 150W power source which isn't very interesting at all but who knows maybe I’m reading too much into it. The most important aspect of a cooler for enthusiasts at least is the how well it works at thermal transfer rather than improving airflow which is what this seems to be doing.

The video itself does show a noisy brushless motor (without a cover however!) running this cooler but they claim it will be inaudible once design has been finalised and the motor has a cover. I’m thinking why not show that off as that’s the major improvement and difference to the current coolers. Another thing I was wondering is does it have to sit horizontal to work properly or can it be placed vertically as well. It would be impractical and probably dangerous if it’s just levitating freely in horizontal position. I’m wondering how quickly it draws the heat away from the heat source as well considering that you only have a solid piece of metal sitting on the CPU while the top heatsink provides airflow. I wonder if the bottom part of the cooler that contains the motor would require a better design to manage larger heat loads.

It’s an interesting design but unless some of the above questions get a favourable answer and someone actually gets their hands on a prototype to test it’s just a bunch of vaporware. It’s interesting vaporware for the moment at least, check out the video itself .

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Congrats to JOHNI5 from Hungary, the second winner in our ‘Year of the Snake Prize Draw’! JOHNI5 is now the proud owner of a GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard after submitting his 3DMARK03 score using the new GIGABYTE OC Edition CPU-Z.

Don’t forget to use the new OC CPUz to be eligible to win weekly prizes!

Friday, February 8, 2013

Congrats to kryptonian_sher, the first winner in our ‘Year of the Snake Prize Draw’! kryptonian_sher is now the proud owner of a GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard after submitting his PiFast score using the new GIGABYTE OC Edition CPU-Z.

Remember, next week we will be having the 2nd prize draw. All you need to do to be part of it, is make sure you're using the new GIGABYTE OC Edition CPU-Z in your submission screenshots. Any benchmark. Any hardware. The more submissions the better chances you have. Good luck.

Hello readers, it’s friday yay! I thought I’d show you a fantastic in-depth video of the new AMD A10-5800K and Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 motherboard, unboxing, features, testing, you name it. It’s a good review to have handy for your next PC upgrade so check it out.

Special thanks to Stuart from GGF LAN in Australia for sharing this video!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Hong Kong’s best overclocker, Mad222, took out his Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 for some old school 3DMARK01 benchmarking. 3DMARK01 is one of those cult 3D benchmarks that requires excellent system tweaking skills, high CPU overclock, high GPU overclock, OS tweaking and time consuming custom run order and LOD (level of detail) levels that require a lot of effort to master. He used the new OC CPUz application to display his system information in the validation screenshot at HWBOT sporting an impressive overclock at 6775MHz with a core i7 3770K (stock frequency 3.5GHz!). He managed #6 fastest in the world and mentioned that he was being held back by his graphics card somewhat. Time to get a better card Mad and keep pushing.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

HWBOT just reported about the new 3DMARK being released and some early rush from enthusiasts to get their name up on the Hall of Fame. For those of you who are unaware, Futuremark released its new benchmark called 3DMARK. Errrrrr, where’s the rest of the name? There is a FireStorm mentioned in one of the videos but they seem to be calling it 3DMARK. Seems they are following Apple’s recent naming schemes. I’m not sure how popular that naming is seeing Android is taking over everywhere these days.

UK overclocker Tonester0011 seems to be enjoying his few moments of fame at the moment with the highest score set on HWBOT’s Hall of Fame with an AMD Radeon HD 7970 and GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H. Congrats Tonester0011 lol!

With the new 3DMark just launched a couple hours ago, it is a great chance for the quick benchers in this community to grab #1 rank in the Hall of Fames. Tonester0011 from the UK took that opportunity to become one of the first leaders of our 3DMark Fire Strike Hall of Fame ranking, effectively getting fifteen minutes of fame. Nicely done!

Friday, February 1, 2013

For those of us located out in Taiwan, the annual Chinese New Year holiday is almost upon us, and to celebrate we’re launching the ‘Year of the Snake Prize Draw’ at HWBOT.org. Open to all of the HWBOT membership, the idea could not be simpler – use our new GIGABYTE OC Edition CPU-Z app in any screenshot submission in February on HWBOT.org, and you will be entered in a weekly prize draw to win a GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI motherboard.

Four prize draws will be held on February 8th, 15th, 22nd and 28th with the winners announced here on the same day.

Prize: GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI Motherboard

Once again folks, this is an open prize draw for any submission for any benchmark, using any hardware. The only stipulation is that you use the GIGABYTE OC Edition CPU-Z app.